A visual grammar of humanitarian action

On the occasion of an exhibition co-produced by the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent and the Rencontres d’Arles where it will be on display this summer, this work unveils an exceptional archive. These images from the collections of the International Movement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent reveal an immense heritage which had been left largely unexplored. Structured in a thematic path (to mobilize, to show, to witness), the book brings together the great names in photography as well as photos taken by humanitarian workers from 1850 to the present day.

The book is illustrated by photographs commented by great witnesses, photographers or actors in the field. These stories offer keys to understand the codes of representation of the humanitarian image and make it possible to highlight what it tells and what it does not show. It is this critical perspective that Nathalie Herschdorfer and Pascal Hufschmid are developing in their introduction, deciphering the links between humanitarian action and still images. Crossing a century and a half of photographic archives allows us to grasp the extent to which photography reproduces, reinforces and reinvents humanitarian narratives.

A new vision of exile where the displaced persons regain their identity and their humanity.

L’Atlas en mouvement presents the work carried out by Mathieu Pernot for more than ten years in collaboration with migrants. What can we imagine about boats swallowed up by the Mediterranean Sea? Can a forest keep the memory of those who have passed through it? What can the sky tell us about the history of those who look at it?

This atlas of images, composite photographs, videos, manuscripts, maps and objets trouvés, proposes the construction of a story through many different voices and takes the opposite point of view on migrants: from anonymous and anxiety-provoking subjects of media’s attention, they become individuals with names, custodians of knowledge and of their own history.

Mathieu Pernot is a photographer. He takes his inspiration from history and sociology and interrogates the notions of identity, urban planning, confinement or migration. He is the author of La ruine de sa demeure (Atelier EXB 2022), Les Gorgan (Xavier Barral, 2017) and Romania (Filigranes, 2017). He and Philippe Artières were awarded the Nadar Prize for L’Asile des photographies (Le Point du Jour, 2013).

Dans une étude publiée le 1er février 2022 dans la revue scientifique PLOS Climate, des chercheurs attestent que plus de 99% des coraux seraient incapables de se remettre d’un réchauffement climatique à 1,5°C et qu’ils seraient tous condamnés à 2°C. Si ce constat cataclysmique s’affiche comme une conséquence inéluctable de l’activité humaine mondiale, l’action locale et déterminée de ceux qui vivent et dépendent du corail s’inscrit comme une lutte contre un système à bout de souffle.

C’est cette histoire puissante de lien inextricable entre l’homme et son écosystème que le photographe et biologiste marin français Martin Colognoli raconte, illustre et soutient avec son livre CORAIL paru aux éditions Hemeria. Un beau livre photographique qui porte l’art au niveau de l’espérance, marqué d’une exigence de fabrication à 4 étoiles : Engagé, Esthétique, Éthique et Écologique.

Le livre se présente en quatre temps : le corail, l’humain, le lien et les actions de protection, comme un cheminement chronologique, didactique et circulaire, une suite relationnelle qui se joue à l’infini. Chacun s’introduit d’un texte et ouvre parfois sur un questionnement. Ici pas de légende, seulement l’humble témoignage du photographe, partageant la vie d’une communauté d’anciens nomades, sans eau ni route, et sur leur dépendance à ce personnage hybride, animal vivant avec un végétal, qu’est le corail. Au total 130 images en couleur et noir & blanc — un parti pris qui exploite toute la palette des rendus photographiques — constituent ce plaidoyer réalisé sur six années de travail et de reportage. Martin mêle ainsi des scènes simples et chatoyantes du quotidien des pêcheurs, attrapant leur sourire, captant leur regard, à des clichés monochromes de matières, reliefs et textures comme une vision radiographique de l’animal-corail.

Pour qu’une symbiose s’installe entre le corail et l’homme, celui-ci doit désormais protéger le corail afin d’éviter que les récifs coralliens soient le premier écosystème rayé par sa faute de la carte du monde. », explique Denis ALLEMAND, auteur de la préface. Et c’est sur ce postulat radical et inspirant que Martin COLOGNOLI a bâti son parcours et son livre. En 2012, il fonde l’association Coral Guardian qui œuvre en faveur de la conservation des écosystèmes coralliens et des communautés qui en dépendent avec une méthode volontairement participative. Restaurer, protéger et valoriser sont les leitmotivs de Coral Guardian grâce à qui 40 000 coraux ont pu être transplantés jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Le livre est ainsi le prolongement naturel de cet engagement quasi viscéral qui anime Martin puisque 10% des bénéfices seront reversés aux actions de terrain menées par l’association en Indonésie et profiteront au village de Seraya Besar ainsi qu’à l’équipe de protecteurs du corail sur l’île d’Hatamin.

Our dependence on fossil energies, highlighted by the Yellow Vests movement in France and by the pandemic for all of humanity, reveals the breadth of our contradictions and challenges us to rethink our mobility. In this context, Forum Vies Mobiles, a research institute of human and social sciences on mobility, launched a photographic mission to document differences in lifestyle of the French in view of their travels. Entrusted to the photographers of Tendance Floue, whose taste for collective projects is known, this mission is now the subject of a publication.

Bringing together 18 photographic journeys, this book illuminates The Lives that we lead with its sensitive approach by following men and women of all ages and social origins, linking or traversing a plurality of territories (metropolises, small towns, peri-urban areas, landlocked villages…), by different routes (paths, roads, highways…) and various means (truck, car, public transport, two-wheelers, on foot…). These journeys also tell the way in which we organize our daily lives today to go to work, have fun, take care of children, visit relatives, get medical treatment, go shopping, through stories that resemble us.

To extend these chronicles in images, the writer Nicolas Mathieu, whose taste for the description of peri-urban France is known, engages to a personal story of his travels, from his earliest years until today.

A subjective and original picture of our mobility aimed at the general public, a true tool for reflection on an essential aspect of the future of our societies.

Algeria, 1961
Raymond Depardon, at the age of nineteen, was sent by the Delmas agency to report on a country in turmoil – the last stirrings of the Algerian war of independence. The young photographer captured his images quickly, gathering about a hundred of them, all striking. He readily says that his awareness and sensitivity were decisively forged during this trip.

Raymond Depardon unearthed these photos (some of which were published in « Un aller pour Alger », Points, 2010), to offer them in a very strong, generous gesture to Barzakh and then to Images Plurielles, two publishing houses with numerous authors of international reputation.

The idea began to form about making a new trip in 2019 to create a « postscript » to the 1961 photos. Raymond Depardon did this from September 15 to 24 of that year. He photographed Algiers, always in black and white, in its abundant contemporaneity. He also spent five days in Oran, where he met the writer Kamel Daoud for long wanderings in the city. The images proved to be so powerful that the decision was made to keep about 30 of them.

Kamel Daoud, delighted by the project, wrote several texts.
They are somewhat disjointed from the photos, as if they were meditations or wild reveries.
If we borrow the distinction developed by Barthes, dear to Raymond Depardon: far from being « anchoring texts », they are « relaying texts », independent from the latter, without any apparent link with them, like texts which are « visions ».